PBC plans Gamboa-Cuellar, Rigondeaux-Ceja

According to Luis DeCubas Jr., who manages a variety of Cuban boxers, Premier Boxing Champions is working to put together a variety of matchups for his charges. In addition to the previously announced Rances Barthelemy-Robert Easter Jr. bout, the plan is to pit Yuriorkis Gamboa against Jesus Cuellar and Guillermo Rigondeaux against Julio Ceja.

Gamboa (29-2, 17 KO), the former Next Big Thing (tm) who ran his career into the ground with alarming alacrity, turned 37 last December and has fought once in the past 16 months. His current three-fight winning streak includes a majority decision over Alexis Reyes in which he received three separate point deductions and a highly questionable decision over Jason Sosa.

Cuellar (28-3, 21 KO) will have to win his fight this Saturday against Carlos Padilla, but considering he’s #15 and Padilla is #1,035 on BoxRec, he should be fine.

Rigondeaux (18-1, 12 KO) vs. Ceja (32-3, 28 KO) looks interesting, at the very least. Ceja knocked out Hugo Ruiz for the interim WBC super bantamweight belt in 2015, and though he lost it in the immediate rematch, he went on to KO Anselmo Moreno his next time out. He is, however, coming off a loss to Franklin Manzanilla due to a busted nose.

Still, an aggressive power puncher is basically required to drag a watchable fight out of Rigo and the latter has never been known for his punch resistance, so it could be fun,